The Tampa Bay Lightning couldn\u2019t overcome a slow start against the Buffalo Sabres at Benchmark International Arena on Saturday, falling 6-2.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay is now 38-16-4.<\/p>\n
Buffalo opened the scoring 5 minutes, 25 seconds into the game on a shot from defenseman Rasmus Dahlin and went on to take a 4-0 lead in the first period.<\/p>\n
Defenseman Zach Metsa made it 5-0 early in the second period before Dominic James put the Lightning on the board with his seventh goal of the season.<\/p>\n
Alex Tuch scored a power-play goal in the third period before Lightning captain Victor Hedman got his first goal of the season.<\/p>\n
Lightning goalie Jonas Johansson finished with 20 saves after entering the game in relief. Hedman led the team on offense with two points.<\/p>\n
Tampa Bay continues play on Tuesday when they visit the Minnesota Wild.<\/p>\n
Scoring summary
First period
BUF 1, TBL 0
5:25 Rasmus Dahlin (12) – Owen Power
The Sabres were the first team on the board Saturday, as defenseman Rasmus Dahlin skated to the top of the circles and fired a shot into the bottom left corner of the net.<\/p>\n
BUF 2, TBL 0
6:15 Josh Norris (7) – Josh Doan, Zach Metsa
Buffalo added to their lead with a five-hole shot by forward Josh Norris.<\/p>\n
BUF 3, TBL 0
8:18 Norris (8) – Bowen Byram, Zach Benson
A netfront redirection cushioned the Buffalo lead.<\/p>\n
BUF 4, TBL 0
15:06 Tage Thompson (32) – Peyton Krebs, Dahlin
The Sabres scored again to close the first period, this time with Tage Thompson\u2019s stickhandle and finish in tight to the net.<\/p>\n
Shots on goal: TBL 14, BUF 10<\/p>\n
Second period
BUF 5, TBL 0
1:54 Metsa (2) – Unassisted
Defenseman Zach Metsa buried his shot to make it 5-0 shortly after a Lightning turnover in the defensive zone.<\/p>\n
BUF 5, TBL 1
16:03 Dominic James (7) – Oliver Bjorkstrand, Victor Hedman
Tampa Bay broke out of their scoreless stretch with a goal from rookie Dominic James, who potted a backhand chance after a Sabres turnover.<\/p>\n
Shots on goal: BUF 20, TBL 12<\/p>\n
Third period
BUF 6, TBL 1
3:43 Alex\u00a0Tuch (24) – Dahlin, Jack Quinn – PP
The Sabres scored with Alex\u00a0Tuch\u2019s shot on the power play to push their lead further.<\/p>\n
BUF 6, TBL 2
5:27\u00a0Hedman (1) – Darren Raddysh
Captain Victor\u00a0Hedman got his first goal of the 2025-26 season on a slap shot from the blue line shortly after the Tuch goal.<\/p>\n
Total shots:\u00a0TBL 38, BUF 35<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Tampa Bay Lightning couldn\u2019t overcome a slow start against the Buffalo Sabres at Benchmark International Arena on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173464,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[135,137,136],"class_list":["post-173463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tampa","tag-tampa","tag-tampa-headlines","tag-tampa-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173463"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173463\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}